


In Another Life, Son

by toastforone



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Brotherly Bonding, Dean learns the bagpipes, Flashbacks, Gen, John Winchester hating hours, Minor Original Character(s), Neglectful John Winchester, POV Dean Winchester, Sam and Dean bond over being neglected by their father, Young Dean Winchester, Young Sam Winchester, and he likes it, bagpipes, high school setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29191200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastforone/pseuds/toastforone
Summary: Look not much happens in this fic except John dumps Sam and Dean at yet another high school, and Dean learns a little about the bagpipes and a lot about himself. Give my controversial theory that Dean had a brush with his bagpipes and it changed him forever a chance... <3
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	In Another Life, Son

John Winchester pulled up to the motel parking lot, killed the ignition, got out, and slammed the driver’s side door all in one motion. He left a tired silence behind him, the air in the impala warm and stale from hours on the road. Sam was asleep in the back, his head held hammocked in the seatbelt. Dean’s ears felt full of empty air now that they’d stopped, and he watched his father walk into the motel reception. At the start of the drive, when they’d left Bobby’s, he’d been full of energy and ideas about where they were going, what John’s next hunt would be on, whether Dean might be joining him on one. Bobby’s place was what he imagined a grandparent’s house was to other people - unchanging and familiar, relaxing. It energised Dean and gave him a pleasant, hopeful feeling. But as they’d driven further away, and as John’s responses to Dean’s conversation had become increasingly short and irritated, that warm liveliness had drained out of him. Now there was nothing in his head at all.  
John came out of reception with the motel key glinting off late afternoon light in his hand. He opened the driver’s door to pop the boot.

‘Get your shit,’ he said to Dean, and disappeared around to the back of the car.

‘Sam,’ Dean said, and his brother blinked, and yawned. He was still cute, only twelve and still with his bowl cut. Dean hopped out of the car and grabbed his and his brother’s bags from the back, slamming the boot shut. He followed his father to one of the ugly yellow doors in the row, and once inside he headed straight for the room with twin singles.

‘What’s for dinner?’ Sam asked as Dean came back into the main room. John took a twenty dollar note out of his wallet.

‘Go stretch your legs,’ he said to Sam, ‘Find a place. Look out for the high school, too. I’m taking the hunt tomorrow with a partner so you’re gonna need babysitting.’ He said “babysitting” like it was funny, like the idea of his sons getting an actual education was bizarre. Dean watched Sam take the money dully, like he wasn’t listening to John, like he wasn’t even in the room. Dean wished he wasn’t there either.

They walked into town down the highway they’d just come off, towards the golden arches that stood high above the petrol station signs. They didn’t talk, but their mutual misery was comforting. Dean had his hand in the pockets of his jacket and his fingers fiddled endlessly with the dollar coin that was in there. He felt so agitated, as if some large and untameable desire was expanding inside of him. When his father was like this, distant and uncaring, which was most of the time, Dean felt that desire grow dangerously, in a way that threatened to suffocate him.

The macdonalds was virtually empty, and Sam and Dean sat at a faux marble counter and ate their burgers. Dean felt in his soul that he was so sick of burgers. He had a recurring dream where he went to a macdonalds and they kept serving him burgers, and he couldn’t eat them fast enough, and they piled up in front of him and then began to smother him, and when he finally put down the burger he was trying to eat and cried for help, his father started clearing them. And Dean would feel so relieved as the burgers were pushed aside, until his father said, ‘Where have you been? We’re heading off.’ And then a desperate sorrow would overcome him and he’d wake up feeling empty once again. Now Dean looked at the burger in his hands and felt vaguely sick.

‘If we stay longer than a week,’ Sam said as he chewed on a fry, ‘You can keep the change. But otherwise you have to give it to me.’ Dean looked at the coins Sam had stacked on the table and snorted. It was a ridiculous bet.

‘Sure. You could have just kept the money Sammy. I don’t care.’

‘I know. But maybe if I bet against it, the universe will spite me,’ Sam said carelessly. Dean watched him eat his fries and wanted to cry.

\---

John dropped them at the high school the next day. They stood at the school gates as the impala’s engine roared down the road, and Dean squinted up at the school sign. Aberdeen High.

‘Weird name,’ Sam said.

‘It’s not that weird,’ Dean said.

‘Sounds old timey. Like, fancy. You know what I mean?’ Sam had his thumbs tucked into his bag straps. Dean looked around at the other students heading into school, and then turned to look at the empty road where his father had just driven off. He was suddenly remembering how much he hated school.

‘You know we don’t have to go,’ he said to Sam, ‘We could just hang out. Or go back to the motel. This looks like a shithole.’ Sam said nothing, just watched the other students walk through the gates. A couple of boys his age were kicking a tennis ball around, fumbling over themselves and yelling as they tried to kick it against the pole of a basketball hoop. Dean sighed.

‘Okay fine,’ he said. Sam grinned at him, and they headed to the office.

‘Hi,’ Dean said to the reception lady. She was white and had ugly, dyed black hair and a naturally unhappy face, and it made Dean want to head straight back out.

‘Yes?’ She asked, glancing up impatiently. ‘We’re enrolling,’ Dean said, ‘Just short term.’

‘Are you now?’ She looked amused. Irritation boiled in Dean’s stomach.

‘Just give us the forms,’ he said. She raised her eyebrows, still amused. Dean turned around to leave, but Sam grabbed his arm.

‘Just sit down,’ he said. Dean rolled his eyes, having lost the good grace he’d felt towards his brother earlier, and threw himself into an office chair while Sam talked to the lady and filled out the forms. He was annoyed at Sam for wanting to go to school, and for being more patient with rude people, and for the fact that strangers liked him more. He felt bitter, and uncomfortable with his bitterness. He hated when he reminded himself of his father.

‘Bridget, take these boys to their classes,’ the lady said to her younger colleague, her tone of voice less condescending and more superior. Bridget was white too, and looked about Dean’s father’s age. She gave him a smile as she got up and led them into the school building.

‘Short term enrollment, huh?’ She said, taking them up a flight of stairs, ‘Do your parents move around a lot?’

‘Yeah. Why are you called Aberdeen High?’ Sam asked, changing the subject, ‘It’s not the name of the town.’

‘It’s Scottish,’ Bridget replied, ‘My great grandfather was a founder of Aberdeen High, actually. He was one of the Scottish immigrants that arrived here. The town already existed, but they made their own school.’ They arrived outside a classroom and Bridget peered through the window in the door.

‘This is your class,’ she said to Sam, and then she turned to Dean, ‘Can you wait here while I take him in?’ Dean nodded, and Sam and Bridget went in while he waited in the hallway. He watched Sam standing in front of his class, his shoulders back and his smile small and shy. He would make so many friends if they were here for longer, and Dean fell heavily back against the hallway wall in frustration. The irritation that he’d felt talking to the old receptionist returned to him, bubbling into proper anger. He hated high school so much. He hated how every single high school was the same but also completely unfamiliar to him, and how he would never learn the layout of any of them. He hated how bad he was at maths, and he hated when a teacher bothered to test him and then told him, ‘There are several gaps in your knowledge.’ He hated sitting alone in class and having people look at him, girls with frightened interest and boys with dislike and suspicion. He hated watching people have what he so badly wanted, and take it all for granted. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall, letting his mind settle until it was quiet, until he felt calm again.

As he stood there, waiting, a mosquito buzzed around his ear. He shook his head to shoo it away, but the high pitched sound remained steady. When it didn’t stop after a second head shake, Dean opened his eyes and looked around. He realised the noise was actually from far away, and it was changing pitch. Was it a drone? Was it some weird animal? Then goosebumps prickled his arms as he thought, was it a monster?

Dean left Bridget and Sam in the classroom and headed down the corridor, sticking to one side and leaning his head out to catch a glimpse of something fishy. He didn’t have any weapons on him, obviously, stupidly, but he did have an emergency ziplock bag of salt in the coin pocket of his wallet. He fished it out now, and had the bag open and ready as he approached the noise. It sounded strange and eerie, and he realised that it was playing a tune. A weird, folksy tune that for some reason reminded him of pubs. It was probably some vengeful school ghost, maybe that woman’s great grandfather. Maybe he was mad because the school he’d founded was shit. Dean smirked.

He reached a door where it was obvious the music was coming from. Maybe he should just ignore it. His dad wouldn’t even take him on a hunting trip, thought he needed babysitting. Why was he gonna risk his life killing a ghost for the school he didn’t even want to be at?

He thought of Sam standing all hopeful at the front of the class and rolled his eyes at the way it gave him absolute motivation to take this thing on. He stood next to the door, his back to the wall, and leaned across to peer into the class through the window in the door. What he saw was embarrassingly human.

An older, brown-skinned man, dressed quite nicely in slacks and a white collared shirt, stood in front of a group of boys, most of them pre-pubescent. The man and all the students were playing the bagpipes under their arms, the tartan wind bag comically large on a couple of the smaller boys, and the pipes sticking up like the spines of strange little creatures. They puffed and played away, and there was something about the concentration of the boys and their pink cheeks that Dean thought was kind of endearing.

He sagged, the adrenaline dissipating as his alertness turned into sheepishness. He was a complete idiot. Who doesn’t recognise bagpipes when they hear it? He stuffed the salt back in his wallet and tucked it away, looking around to make sure nobody had seen him. He’d really thought he was about to be some kind of hero for his little brother. It was humiliating.

‘You alright?’ Dean jumped a mile in the air at the sound of a man’s voice and turned to see the bagpipe teacher’s head poked around the door, looking at him curiously. He laughed at Dean’s reaction.

‘Easy, boy,’ he said, ‘I’m no disciplinarian. You want to come in?’ The man had a strong scottish accent, and he was tall, taller than Dean. He pushed the door open wide and stood back, gazing at Dean without curiosity or judgement, but instead a steady sort of expectancy. Dean thought about his options. He could either go back and find Bridget, and probably get in trouble for running off, or he could go and chill with the bagpipe kids. It was an easy choice.

The boys nodded at him when he came in, wary. They definitely did not look like the most popular kids in school, and that made Dean relax a bit. Not that he cared, but kids who are lamer require less energy to be around.

‘We’ve got a new bandmate, lads,’ The man addressed the boys, ‘What’s your name, then?’ ‘Dean,’ he replied, giving the bagpipers a half wave.

‘Welcome, Dean,’ the man said, ‘I’m Graham. This is Sung Hyun, Billy, Jeremiah, Emilio, and Moses.’

‘Heya,’ Dean said. They were all younger than him.

‘Would you like a turn, Dean? On the pipes?’ Graham was giving him that same steady look, giving Dean time to think. Dean considered. These boys looked undoubtedly stupid, but they also looked like they didn’t really care. He thought about how ridiculous his father would think bagpipes were. He could just hear him. ‘Sound like some kid’s balls being ripped right off,’ he’d say, ‘Only pussier.’

‘Sure,’ he said. Graham nodded and handed him his bagpipes.

‘Hold it under here, like this,’ He instructed. Dean was reminded of his father teaching him to shoot a gun.

‘It’s gonna buck back so keep it in your shoulder, or it’ll getcha and you’ll learn the hard way,’ John had said. Learning to shoot had made Dean feel big and tough and serious, back when he was thirteen. He would roll his eyes at his younger self. It only made you more useful. Now he cradled the bagpipe under his arm and held it like the other boys were.

‘That looks about right. Now here’s where you blow,’ Graham tapped the shortest, frontmost pipe, ‘And you play down here. You won’t know any tunes but you place your fingers like so.’ Graham moved each of Dean’s fingers onto each hole of the pipe that stuck out beneath the bag.

‘Now you blow first, and to play you squeeze the bag. The bag’s like your lung, and your arm lets it breathe out. Then you have a continuous sound, not like the clarinet or the flute, where you’re always catching your breath.’ He gave Dean a smile as he said it, and Dean flicked one back. He liked the way Graham said “clarinet”.

‘Sung Hyun, show him how you start the note, will you?’ Graham said to the tallest kid. Sung Hyun blew into the pipe and then lifted the bag under his arm, and a whole chord of notes, sounding reedy and high pitched, sang out. He stopped, and Graham motioned for Dean to try.

‘Blow first, then squeeze. Keep all your fingers down for now, just focus on an even airflow.’ He said. Dean nodded, and blew into the bag. He felt the pressure in the bag, and squeezed with his elbow. Though less even than Sung Hyun’s, Dean’s pipes made about the same sound.

‘Good job, son,’ Graham said, squeezing Dean’s shoulder briefly. It was effectively the same action John had done when Dean had first hit an empty can on the fence with the air rifle. He’d clapped Dean’s shoulder, hard, so that Dean staggered sideways a little. ‘Finally, Dean,’ John had said approvingly. Dean looked back to Graham and gave another quick smile, straightening slightly. Against all his better judgment, he felt pleased with himself.

‘Now you won’t be able to play with the band just yet, but you’ll get there,’ Graham continued, ‘Don’t worry, just takes practice with the tunes and the blowing, is all,’ he added when he saw Dean’s smile falter. But Dean wasn’t worried about playing with the band. He suddenly understood with new clarity why his younger brother had bet against them staying for long. For so long Dean had given up on the idea of staying put anywhere, he’d forgotten what it felt like to want it so immediately. He looked at the bagpipes under his arm, and up at Graham, and he felt that dangerous agitation expanding inside him again.

‘You alright to sit on the sidelines for this round, Dean?’ Graham asked, eyeing Dean, ‘I’ll give you the fingering book, and you can practice.’ Dean nodded silently and took the music book from him, and sat at a desk while Graham resumed with the kids. He looked at the fingering on the page and followed along. As he did, the agitation inside him settled again. He watched Graham talking to the kids, patient and light, and he imagined staying here, learning to play, spending mornings with Graham and these other bagpipers. He imagined telling his dad he was learning them, and John saying, ‘You’re kidding. That’s fucking ridiculous, Dean.’ Dean would reply, ‘Yeah. I don’t really care. I just thought you should know.’ He watched as Emilio made a screechy mistake, and Graham laughed and stopped the group.

‘It was a good effort, Emilio. A little too much passion, maybe! But that’s better than too little. Let’s go again.’  
Dean could pretend, for today. 

\----

The lesson finished and the kids packed up their pipes, thanked Graham, and left. Dean stood up and gave the bagpipes and book back to Graham.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ready to head off.

‘No problem at all, Dean,’ Graham said. ‘You know, if you come early tomorrow I can give you a lesson. Might bring you up to speed a little faster.’  
Dean smiled, looking down.

‘You made a good first note there. I can see you’ve got potential.’ At this, Dean lifted a shoulder uncomfortably.

‘I’m not here for long,’ He said, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘You don’t have to be. It’s good fun even for a bit.’ Graham slid the book into his satchel. ‘So tomorrow, eight thirty?’ Dean nodded.

‘Sure. See you then.’

\---

‘How was school, Sammy?’ Dean asked his brother as they headed out the gates.

‘Good. Teacher’s nice.’

‘What about the other kids?’

‘They’re nice too. We played handball. I wish I was better, but the others were okay about it.’

‘Just takes time,’ Dean said lightly.

‘How was your day?’ Sam asked curiously, ‘You’re not even in a bad mood. You make out with some girl?’ Dean snorted.

‘I’m not making out with random chicks at a random school. Especially not one called Aberdeen. You can guess what I did.’

‘You made out with a teacher.’ ‘Nope.’

‘You made out with a guy.’ Sam looked at Dean out of the corner of his eye when he said it. Dean frowned.

‘No. Bagpipes.’

‘What?’

‘I played bagpipes. It was that or go to class.’

‘You’d rather play bagpipes than go to class? God, Dean, you really do hate school.’

‘Yeah, I do. And it was fun. I’m going in early to do it again.’ Dean laughed at himself, suddenly feeling elated. He plucked a leaf off a passing tree and tore it up carelessly.

‘You’re going in early? You’re sure you’re not getting with some teacher.’ Dean laughed again and pushed Sam’s small shoulder lightly.

‘You’re just jealous that you’re not on the pipes,’ he said. 

‘I’m definitely not jealous,’ Sam said.

\----

John was in a bad mood when he got home, and it was already dark. Sam and Dean had had cereal for dinner, again. They were sitting in their beds with the door closed, Sam doing homework and Dean making circles of salt on the bedside table. They heard John Winchester slam the door on his way in and go straight for the whiskey bottle sitting on the table. The familiar sound of the cap coming off rattled through Dean’s head as Sam switched off the light and they both lay down, pretending to be asleep.

\----

John didn’t mind dropping them early the next morning. In fact he dropped them at eight, because he wanted to get back to work. For half an hour Sam quizzed Dean about the bagpipes, just to check he was really telling the truth. Dean answered him shamelessly, feeling that same lightness as he had the day before.

At eight-thirty, they retraced their steps to Sam’s class and Dean carried on down the hall to the bagpipes room. Just before he reached the door, worry spiked through him. Maybe Graham would forget. Maybe he had been joking about the extra lessons.

But there he was, standing at the front of the class, fiddling with the pipes on another bag. Dean ducked in and Graham looked up as he entered, his dark eyes warm.

‘Morning, Dean,’ He said, ‘Glad you could make it.’

‘Hey.’

‘Take these pipes. I fixed ‘em up for you.’

‘Thanks,’ Dean said. He put them under his arm like yesterday.

‘Keep the bass drone - it’s the big pipe closest to your head - on your shoulder. There we go. And you’re holding the chanter, that’s right. Keep your fingers straight, if you can. It’s best to use these more fleshy parts of your fingers to stop the holes, you’re more likely to keep the seal that way. Good.’

Dean held the bagpipes as instructed, and was surprised at how natural it felt, despite the bag being all flat and the pipes moving around.

‘Great. Now put it down.’ Dean looked at Graham in surprise. ‘We can’t start you on the bag just yet. Bagpipes is a long game, son. You begin learning with this wee thing.’  
He reached into his satchel and pulled out what looked like a weird recorder. He handed it to Dean, who looked it over dubiously.

‘It’s a practice chanter,’ Graham explained, ‘You practice the fingering on it, and memorise your tunes. Blow through the top, it’s not hard.’ Dean did so, and a strange, slightly lower but just as reedy sound as actual bagpipes came out of it.

‘Good. Here, let’s learn a basic tune.’ He brought out his own chanter, and instructed Dean on the fingering.

‘Just repeat it, until it becomes muscle memory. Then we can apply it to the bagpipes themselves.’

Dean followed along, and a large part of him felt like a completely different person, standing here with this patient man who taught so differently to how he was used to, playing the bagpipes of all things, for God’s sake. It was surreal, so far from filthy motels and being left alone with Sam for days, the hard silence of long drives and the quivering undercurrent of danger that governed his life. But for some reason, it didn’t feel wrong. He searched absently for that sense of agitation that so often rose up inside of him, and found that as he tootled on the chanter, he was unable to summon it. Maybe it was because focussing on the music distracted him from it. Maybe it was because he felt free. Practicing with Graham in the quiet of early morning school, he felt like the person he should have been all along.

\---

‘When’s the next practice?’ Dean asked Graham when the school bell rang. He handed back the chanter.

‘You hang on to that,’ Graham said, ‘You’ll need it to practise at home. And take this music so you can learn the tunes. There’ll be a lesson next Thursday.’ Next Thursday was a week from now. Dean’s good mood was abruptly killed, and he looked out of the window for a long moment, at the dull clouds pressing in on the tops of nearby houses.

‘I won’t be here,’ he said finally, meeting Graham’s eyes, which had been on him the whole time. Graham considered him for a moment.

‘You move a lot, do you Dean?’ He said. Dean nodded. He did not want to ruin this further by talking about it. Graham was quiet for a moment longer, as if there was something he wanted to say. Dean willed him not to. Eventually, Graham spoke.

‘You keep the chanter, son. And the music. It’s good for travelling, gives you something to do.’ Dean met the man’s eyes again, surprised.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘Thank you.’ He folded the music sheets in half, not wanting to leave. He knew that he would not be taking the calm he felt within the walls of this class with him when he did. He felt like he should say something, but he didn’t quite know what. “This made me the happiest I have ever been since I was four years old” seemed like a bit much. There was nothing else to do, so he turned and walked slowly to the door.

‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Dean. Take care,’ Graham said, and all at once something slipped inside of Dean. He found himself suddenly unable to speak, and could only nod hard, gripping tightly to the chanter.

‘Thank you for teaching me,’ he managed, and pushed open the classroom door into the corridor scattered with people heading to class.

\----

Sam and Dean walked down the steps after school. Sam waved goodbye to a new friend as they walked, and proceeded to tell Dean about an impressive performance by some kid who could catch M&Ms in his mouth from ten metres. Dean listened idly, feeling the length of the chanter slipped up inside the sleeve of his jacket. After the lesson with Graham, he’d spent the rest of the day sitting at the back of the school, watching kids his age smoking behind the bins and thinking about how nice it would be to be one of their puffs of smoke, released into the air, all weightless and formless, then drift up to the sky, dissipating into a million particles.

‘How was your day?’ Sam asked.

‘Fine,’ Dean said.

‘Bagpipes go badly?’ Sam smirked slightly. Dean huffed, smiling wryly.

‘Whatever. You got homework?’

‘Yep. Maths.’ Sam replied, obviously pleased. Dean snorted, and was about to say something teasing when they walked through the gates, and the words stilled in his mouth.

The impala sat idling on the curb, sleek and gleaming in the afternoon sun. John was in the driver’s seat, his head obscured but his arm hanging loosely out of the window, waiting languidly. A dullness seeped into Dean, as he and Sam stood there for a moment, watching. Then Dean heard a small, tired sigh from his brother, before Sam headed slowly towards the car.

‘Here,’ Dean followed as he dug in his pocket, and held out the change from the macdonalds when they reached the car. Sam looked at it, his face blank and unhappy. Then he took it and tucked it away.

‘Sorry about the bagpipes, Dean,’ he said. Dean didn’t reply, just yanked open the passenger door and got in.

‘Hunt got sorted early,’ John said as explanation, ‘You’ll be happy. That school looks like a dump.’

Dean said nothing, and they pulled away from the curb, heading towards the highway. He watched Aberdeen High disappear in the wing mirror, and felt the chanter in his sleeve. He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Just for specifics Graham was raised in Scotland but his parents emigrated there from North Africa. Are there pubs in America?? Are high schools there often founded with different colonial flavours? How much does a maccas meal cost in USD? Idk because i'm not American :')

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [There's Still Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29262363) by [toastforone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastforone/pseuds/toastforone)




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